Deborah Digges
. | birth_place = Jefferson City, Missouri | death_date = April | death_place = Amherst, Massachusetts | occupation = Writer, poet, teacher | nationality = American | ethnicity = Dutch American | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = University of California, Riverside, B.A.; University of Missouri, M.A.; Iowa Writers' Workshop, M.F.A. | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | notableworks = Vesper Sparrows (1986); Rough Music (1995) | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | influences = | influenced = | awards = Ingram-Merrill Award (1985); National Endowment for the Arts grant (1987); Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award (1987); Guggenheim Fellowship, (1988); Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award (1996) | signature = | website = | portaldisp = }} Deborah Digges (February 6, 1950 - April 10, 2009) was an American poet and academic. Life Youth and education Digges was born Deborah Leah Sugarbaker in Jefferson City, Missouri.Deborah Digges 1950-2009, Poetry Foundation. Web, July 6, 2014. Her father was a physican and her mother was a nurse; she was the sixth child in a family of ten children. Digges received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California at Riverside in 1976, a Masters from the University of Missouri in 1982, and an M.F.A. in Poetry from the Iowa Writers Workshop in 1984. Career In the course of her academic career, she taught in the writing and English faculties of New York University, Boston University, Columbia University, and Tufts University. She authored 4 books of poetry and 2 memoirs. She also translated the poems of Cuban poet Maria Elena Cruz Varela. A final book of poetry, The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart: Poems, was published posthumously by Knopf in 2010. Digges died April 10, 2009, in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her death was reported as a suicide following her fatal fall from the top of the bleachers of McGuirk Stadium at the University of Massachusetts. Recognition Her debut book of poems, Vesper Sparrows, won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Prize for Poetry. In 1997 Digges was awarded the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the largest prize for a single work of poetry, for her book Rough Music. She was also the winner of two Pushcart Prizes. Awards and grants *Delmore Schwartz Memorial Prize *Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award *Ingram Merrill Foundation grant *National Endowment for the Arts grant *John Simon Guggenheim Foundation grant Publications Poetry * Vesper Sparrows. New York: Atheneum, 1986. * Late in the Millennium. New York: Knopf, 1989. * Rough Music. New York: Knopf, 1995. * Trapeze. New York: Knopf, 2004. * The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart: Poems. New York: Knopf, 2010. Non-fiction * Fugitive Spring: A memoir. New York: Knopf, 1992. * The Stardust Lounge: Stories from a boy's adolescence (with photos by Stephen Digges). New York: Doubleday, 2001. Translated *Maria, Elena Cruz Varela, Ballad of the Blood: The poems of Maria Elena Cruz Varela (translated & edited with Mairym Cruz-Bernal). Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1996. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Deborah Digges, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Sep. 17, 2015. Audio / video *''Deborah Digges''. Kansas City, MO: University of Missouri, 1992. *''Deborah Digges and J.D. McClatchy: Reading their poems'' (tape). Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1993. *''The Stardust Lounge: Stories from a boy's adolescence'' (CD). Princeton, NJ: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, 2005. Except where noted, discographical information courtesy WorldCat. See also * List of U.S. poets References * Notes External links ;Poems * [http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/digges/poem.html Two poems from Rough Music] * Deborah Digges 1950-2009 at the Poetry Foundation. *Deborah Digges profile & 8 poems at the Academy of American Poets. ;Audio / video * Video of Deborah Digges' reading on 3/9/09 at the Boston Court Theatre in Pasadena CA, as featured on Poetry.LA *Deborah Digges at YouTube ;Books *Deborah Digges at Amazon.com ;About * Faculty Bio at Tufts University *"Deborah Digges, Poet Who Channeled Struggles, Dies at 59," New York Times, April 16, 2009 *"Tufts mourns acclaimed poet, professor," Boston Globe, April 14, 2009 *"Deborah Digges dies at 59; distinguished poet and memoirist," Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2009 Category:1950 births Category:2009 deaths Category:American poets Category:Women poets Category:Poets who committed suicide Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni Category:University of Iowa alumni Category:University of Missouri alumni Category:University of California alumni Category:Guggenheim Fellows Category:20th-century poets Category:20th-century women writers Category:21st-century poets Category:21st-century women writers Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:American women writers Category:American academics